User Comments - goulnik
goulnik
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
June 30, 2007 at 10:58 AMI loved the pace of that dialogue, even though I didn't get it all the first time around, just getting into the rhythm was so stimulating, same feeling as the other interview in the advanced lesson for Chinese New Year. very enthusiastic interviewee and interviewer, nice job. How about getting one of those every month or so?
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
June 29, 2007 at 5:46 AMon the subject of pdfs, I asked before but will ask again, why does the pinyin transcription (and translation) have to be typeset in the same size as Chinese characters? Those hanzi have so many strokes that with antialiasing they are lot dimmer. I'd suggest to at least reduce font size such that pinyin does not extend beyond (and possibly aligns with) hanzi, say size 14/11 or some such
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
June 29, 2007 at 5:36 AMI only print pdfs when I have a Practice Plan on a lesson, otherwise html is perfect (not sure why the link has to be buried in the pdf rather than straight on this site, which could still only be exposed to subscribers).
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 26, 2007 at 8:54 AManyway, all generalizations are bad :-)
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 23, 2007 at 7:58 PMsorry, I meant 多音字, (Chinese) characters with multiple readings.
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 23, 2007 at 7:56 PMJapanese pronunciation may not be as tricky as that of Chinese tones, but the few Hanzi homophones(同音字 tóngyīnzì) pale in comparison to the multiple readings of Japanese Kanji.
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 23, 2007 at 12:12 PMback to the topic... another interesting thing about Japanese is Furigana (振假名 zhènjiǎmíng) these tiny kana used to indicate pronunciation above Kanji in dictionaries and other texts for language learners. Similar to Bopomofo used in Taiwan. This is a very smart device that should be used with pinyin instead of listing it under Hanzi in equally large font size.
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 23, 2007 at 8:58 AMIf only the Chinese were using katakana / 片假名 / piànjiǎmíng, bopomofo / ㄅㄆㄇㄈ / 注音符号/ zhùyīn fúhào, or even plain latin letters for foreign names (people, places etc.) that would make things easier...
Posted on: 一见钟情
June 22, 2007 at 11:30 AMLantian, 你的回答很适时,等不及明天的课程:-)
Posted on: Touring a Factory
July 5, 2007 at 6:57 AMI guess Peter works for a company that wants the cheapest deal to get its Western customers hammers at rock bottom prices. no doubt Peter has an ethical dilemna, his bosses might too but do their investors and ultimately customers really care?